Site Mobile Navigation

Report Finds Lawmaker Was Shielded by Leaders

One woman who worked for Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez said she contracted pink eye after he pressured her to put drops in his eyes. Another woman described being repeatedly groped by him until he forced his hands up her legs. Several employees said Mr. Lopez told them to wear low-cut blouses and high heels, or stay in hotel rooms with him overnight. Two women were so repulsed that they began secretly taping their interactions with Mr. Lopez.

State ethics regulators on Wednesday released a report that offered a scathing assessment not just of Mr. Lopez but also of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, and his staff. The report said the Assembly’s leadership shielded Mr. Lopez, a Brooklyn Democrat who was one of the chamber’s most powerful members, from public scrutiny amid allegations against him by his staff of sexual harassment.

The report accuses Mr. Silver’s senior staff members of ignoring the Assembly’s own internal rules by failing to investigate and refer the initial harassment allegations to an Assembly ethics committee. Mr. Silver’s press office also appears to have made statements that were not candid, according to internal exchanges detailed in the report. And the staff went to lengths to keep the matter secret. “Money flow and our desire to keep this away from media scrutiny complicates the resolution of this matter,” Bill Collins, a senior Assembly lawyer, wrote in an e-mail.

The Assembly even failed to comply fully with a subpoena issued by its own internal ethics committee, the report said.

The state ethics report was released shortly after a special prosecutor conducting a parallel criminal investigation in Brooklyn said Mr. Lopez, 71, would not face charges there, because no “chargeable crime” had occurred within that jurisdiction.

The state ethics panel, called the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, accused Mr. Lopez, the former Brooklyn Democratic chairman, of violating three provisions of the state’s Public Officers Law. But the commission, which includes appointees of Mr. Silver, did not give its staff the authority to investigate whether the Assembly staff had violated ethics laws, a restriction government watchdog groups see as a major shortcoming of the investigation.

The Assembly ultimately censured Mr. Lopez for harassment, after reaching confidential settlements to prevent disclosure of the first two allegations against him. The Legislature must now decide whether Mr. Lopez will be disciplined further for allegations of ethics violations.

Mr. Lopez, who declined to be interviewed in either investigation, issued a statement dismissing the commission’s findings as “salacious and sensational claims” that “are fallacious.”

“Should there ever come a time when Mr. Lopez is actually afforded the fundamental rights supposedly allowed everyone, the truth will finally be told,” he said. But two of the women who made complaints against Mr. Lopez, Victoria Burhans and Chloë Rivera, said the report should prompt change in the capital.

“Albany’s culture is one in which young women are often mistreated and bad behavior by powerful men is condoned and covered up,” the women said in a statement. “We hope that the Commission’s findings will lead to much needed reform.”

Mr. Silver’s spokesman, Michael Whyland, said, “The speaker is deeply committed to ensuring that all our employees are treated with respect and dignity” and noted that Mr. Silver had previously acknowledged mistakes in how the matter was handled.

Photo

Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez in the Assembly Chamber at the Capitol in Albany in March.Credit
Mike Groll/Associated Press

The Legislature released the ethics report only under pressure, and after attempting to remove crucial passages from the document. Last month, Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine, a Democrat and ally of Speaker Silver, and Senator Andrew J. Lanza, a Republican from Staten Island, told the ethics commission to extensively edit sections delving into how Mr. Silver’s staff handled the allegations. They were rebuffed by the commission.

Details in the report, involving eight female employees, are often graphic.

One woman who worked in Mr. Lopez’s office began to cry after he pressured her to massage his hand; the woman told Mr. Lopez that she was uncomfortable because she had been raped in college, but Mr. Lopez persisted nonetheless. Mr. Lopez told the woman, “You can’t be so wired.” But it turned out the woman was wired in a different way — she was recording the conversation. “Stop crying,” Mr. Lopez told the woman. “Alright, rub my hand, do my hand.”

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

He also said he wanted to share an apartment so she would “ ‘cuddle’ with him,” according to the report.

The woman told an Assembly administrator about Mr. Lopez’s behavior, saying she was so distraught that she thought she “might have a heart attack or commit suicide if Lopez’s behavior continued,” according to the report.

She also told investigators that Mr. Lopez had asked a college-age male intern if he was interested in dating a 14-year-old female intern. When the young man said that would be inappropriate, “Lopez opined that statutory rape laws should not exist,” the report says. Mr. Lopez denied making the comment.

Another complainant, Ms. Burhans, told investigators that she was repeatedly groped before quitting, including on a trip to Atlantic City when Mr. Lopez tried to make her stay in a hotel room with him overnight. Ms. Burhans said that she “fought him off” after Mr. Lopez “grabbed her face and tried to kiss her,” according to the report.

As they drove home, he pressured her to massage his hand and “used this opportunity to force his right hand between” her legs, the report said.

Mr. Lopez also demanded that several women write effusive and flirtatious text messages, in one case even writing a sample note for them to follow: “Vito, I wanted to be nice to you. Hope you like way I look,” he wrote. He then sometimes used such letters to forestall complaints made against him.

The women feared Mr. Lopez, an imposing figure, would ruin their careers if they complained, according to the report. As one Assembly colleague was quoted in the report, “You can’t get a dog license in Brooklyn without Lopez’s blessing.”

There were limits. After Mr. Lopez told one woman that she could change a light bulb more easily in high heels, she responded, “I’ll wear heels when you do, Vito.”

When the Assembly settled the first two complaints about conduct by Mr. Lopez, the chamber’s lawyers inserted a sweeping confidentiality clause that prevented the parties from even acknowledging that an agreement existed. Assembly officials have said the confidentiality clauses were sought by the women who said they had been harassed, but the report disputes that claim, and says that even after the matter became public, Mr. Collins, the senior Assembly lawyer, called a lawyer for two of the complainants to remind her of the secrecy clause.

“The chief concern of those in the Assembly was mitigating the Assembly’s damages,” said Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the special prosecutor, who is also the Staten Island district attorney. “That goal outweighed any interest in investigating or disciplining Assembly Member Lopez or in preventing similar occurrences in the future.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 16, 2013, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Ethics Panel Finds Lopez Was Shielded by Leaders. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe